Is Haskin right? Can lightning strike twice?
http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/horse-racing-steve-haskin/archive/2017/10/08/keen-ice-right-where-he-wants-to-be.aspx
KI is slow. His top is 0. Unless you expect every horse that has run negative (many that have run multiple negative figures) to all not run a good race (or be burned up in a suicide pace), I don\'t see it.
He ran a -3 as a three year old and a -1 last year...sire profile indicates he could have a new top in him at age five. To me he\'s not impossible.
Yes, this is a fast group but there are some question marks. Who\'s likely to run their top among the current top four choices?
Haskin writes:
\"Why is Keen Ice so dangerous when he couldn\'t even defeat the New York-bred Diversify as the 6-5 favorite.\"
Apparently not a figures guy. That\'s like saying Yosida had no chance because he was a slow Japanese bred slug. Who immigrated before the borders tightened up.
Congratulations to the TG analysis for identifying that exacta. Probably get a square price and again I\'ve bet on worse propositions but Diversify is more appealing to me even if he had been born in the Bronx at a zoo.
Good luck playing a 5yo in the Classic. Unless the name is Zenyatta,no thanks. Check the \"Archives.\"
Good Luck,
Joe B
Just to be clear - Looking ahead, I see no reason to play the BC Classic.
Incoming assertion alert!
I think you have a pretty big selection bias problem when you say \"5 year olds don\'t win the Classic!\" (Reminds me of a recent thread where the idea of coming up with rules vs. pre-requisites vs. guiding principles was discussed.)
Because most really good horses get retired after 3 or 4, you probably won\'t see a lot of 5 year old Classic winners, but, IMO, that just means that you don\'t often see a 5 year old good enough to win who is still in training, not that there\'s some curse on 5 year olds.
FWIW, Haskin is absolutely a figures guy. I\'ll go so far as to say he\'s the biggest promoter of TGs of any prominent blogger.
None of this is to suggest that he based his view on the sheets, of course.
Agreed! Those are the types of rules that will put you in the poorhouse quickly.
I\'m my very humble and novice opinion (and assuming no track bias), I\'d say you have to use all horses in your vertical and horizontal wagers as A horses that had a negative TG fig in their last race. The only winner in the last 7 editions not to do so was crazy \'ole DROSSELMEYER.
Not real sure about that respectfully. Handicapper Jim Mazur aka Progressive Handicapping utilizes a profile/rules type model. He and his Mohegan Sun group hit the Breeders Cup Pick 6 last year for $250k+.
FWIW, heard Castellano will be riding West Coast for Baffert. Any opinions on this?
Between 1984 and 2013 there were 8, 5 year olds good enough to win the classic. Seems like a fair amount to me.
I hear Castellano is pretty good. But he almost never rides for Baffert, so that\'s a bit of a surprise if true. He needs a replacement for Smith, of course, but that\'s not a downgrade.
As to your previous comment, horses don\'t race against prior years - they race against their opponents. Since just about every horse in the BCC will have multiple negative numbers, and there will be a few that have put several negative numbers together, Keen Ice would be a bit of a shocker. His odds will reflect that, though.
And speaking of vertical bets, there was a horse in last year\'s BCC that finished in the tri that was not coming off a negative number. That horse was . . . . Keen Ice.
Now we are looking at hindsight/confirmation bias, IOW, results-oriented thinking - \"If he won a pick 6, his profile/rules model must be good!\"
The opposing position can be boiled down to, \"Even a broken clock is right twice a day.\" The fact that he won a pick 6 that you\'re aware of is not evidence he\'s profitable, let alone that his model works. It\'s only evidence that he won a pick 6 that day. Said another way: he could have fired off a $10 quick-pick ticket and won that pick-6, which wouldn\'t be evidence that quick-picks are +ROI.
When Mazur can show 20 years of positive ROI, his models may mean something. Until then, he\'s just another tout hawking his picks.
Any Deadwood fans in the audience?
\"Soap! Soap with a prize inside!\"
\"Wow I just bought a soap from that man and it had $5 inside!\"
Deadwood was written by a horseplayer.
So 8 horse in the last 30 years? And what criteria did you use to determine \"good enough\"?
If people are blindly following some rule like a 5 year old can\'t win the Classic or that a 3 year old can\'t beat an older horses gives me hope that handicapping can still be a profitable endeavor.
isn\'t 8 out 50 about 28% , that is good enough for me?
Better than 1 for 30 ?????
phiywheel
meant to type 8 out of 30
One needs to know how many 3,4 and 5 year olds entrants there were that ran to make an assessment . e.g. if there were only 8 5 year olds to run during the stated years (29) then the number of 5 year old winners would be very impressive.
Conversely if there were 100 5 year old that ran and only 8 of them won , the meaning would be different. But the fact that 8 5 year olds won out the 29 year sampling says they have a chance.27% chance. That leaves 70% left for the 3 and 4 year olds. To my knowledge no 6 year old has ever won the classic.
I don\'t think anyone is saying that a 5 year old can\'t win the Classic.
IMO it\'s unlikely, especially in the case of a Keen Ice who is slower than at least 3 younger ones.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
I doubt anyone can show 20 years of positive ROI. His model has been very successful at previous Breeders Cups. I know his model doesn\'t jive with the model(s) you use, but it doesn\'t mean his model is flawed. Respectfully.
I\'ve hit one for a lot more than that, and if it wasn\'t for that @#*&$ South American in the BC Marathon I would have had one even bigger. And in terms of the point under discussion, it means nothing-- in fact, the South American demonstrates the randomness in small samples.
Curious to know how big their ticket was, too. Makes a difference.
dsipes Wrote:
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> I doubt anyone can show 20 years of positive ROI.
I also doubt it! This should provoke you to ask yourself why you\'d pay him for it.
> His model has been very successful at previous
> Breeders Cups.
But not so successful as to be a money-maker?
> I know his model doesn\'t jive with
> the model(s) you use, but it doesn\'t mean his
> model is flawed. Respectfully.
No, the fact that he disagrees with me doesn\'t make him wrong (correlation vs. causation!), but the lack of a positive ROI definitely points in that direction.
At any rate, let\'s start discussing the products sold by the host of the forum, rather than those sold by... anyone else.
Some frat brothers of mine at Drexel took down the whole megillah back in 2002 for just a few bucks, oh wait, never mind...
I have hit a large one by mistake. I punched my ticket in wrong and didn\'t realize it until it was too late and my mistake was putting a 45-1 shot in where I wanted the favorite. The 45-1 shot won as did the rest of the ticket (correctly entering my intent). This was another one with a big time zone issue due to playing night races at Hollywood while living in Moscow, Russia. This one went my way, I had time zone bad beats that went the other way.
Ticket was 6,400
Sorry, misunderstood your original post. I read it as you saying that there has been 8 5 year olds good enough to win and none of them have.
I must have misunderstood your original post:
\"Good luck playing a 5yo in the Classic. Unless the name is Zenyatta,no thanks. Check the \"Archives.\"
I took that to mean you were saying betting on a 5 year old in the classic(unlesss it\'s zenyatta) is a bad bet. Perhaps you meant to say betting on this particular horse (who happens to be 5) is a bad bet.
Perhaps I wasn\'t clear.
I don\'t bet 5 yos (or older)in the Classic. Yes, it\'s a rule I have. If they beat me, fine.
And yes, I think Keen Ice is a bad bet in the win hole.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Since KI will be maybe 30-1 I don\'t think that gives you too much of an edge. Does that rule apply only to the Classic, and if so, why?
TGJB Wrote:
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> Since KI will be maybe 30-1 I don\'t think that
> gives you too much of an edge. Does that rule
> apply only to the Classic, and if so, why?
He should be that high because he\'s too slow. May be lower than you think as this year\'s likely wise guy horse.
Yes, that\'s a rule I use for the BC Classic only. Doesn\'t apply for me for the turf. In the dirt mile, it\'s not in stone but I still prefer the younger ones.
A 5yo with superior numbers in the Classic will be overhyped and is not going to provide any value anyway. Besides,they already are what they are so I\'ll look for a 3yo (or 4yo)moving in the right direction. Case in point was Will Take Charge over Mucho Macho Man. I got beat but I\'ll take that kind of scenario and value every time in that race.
Good Luck,
Joe B.
Arcanques covered a lot of losers.
I do not mean to belittle anyone\'s accomplishments, and I haven\'t played a Pick 6 this century, but 6K seems like a large investment to this minnow.
Hey JB could you host a contest? Each entrant gets a mythical 6K to play into the Saturday edition of the BC P6. I will donate the Grand Prize: Free LIFETIME Admission to Saratoga TG seminars. Second prize: A copy of the biography of Uncle Bill Spillane currently being developed by Fairmount and Frank D. Working title: Dead Weight: Remembrances of an Oversized Exercise Rider.
Contest, if JB agrees to host it, will be played by the Marquis de Crist rules, meaning the minimum wager will be $2. In the event of multiple winners, the player who hits Six with the smallest investment gets bragging rights.
And to tie some threads together, Bucchero is much more likely to be on my prospective contest ticket than Keen Ice.
Looks like we\'ll never know the answer to this riddle--Keen Ice retired today after minor injury training for BC...